School Holidays, No Break?

[almater435]

Hi everyone, 

One of the many reasons I like academia is because of the schedule that is typically more relaxed than a typical 9-5 throughout the year. I've just started working in a lab as a first year Ph.D student, right out of undergrad. I was aware that my advisor treated the lab like a 9-5 job, when we're not in class we should be in the lab working on whatever, whether it is lab work or coursework. This is not my favorite method of working, as I would rather have some silent reading time in the library rather than reading in the lab with undergraduates and graduates who are talking about work, making it hard to concentrate. However, what I was not aware of was how strict my advisor is about taking school breaks. It appears that no matter the work load, the current grad students can only take 2 weeks off the entire year to visit their family and they had to pry that time away with the advisor. I am not sure if this is just because I am naive, but I would have expected more flexibility based on what I saw with grad students during my undergrad. We have a fall break that is 2 days that I was already looking forward to so I could take some time to visit my sister, but when I asked the grad students about it, they said I "might get one day off". They also only get one week out of 5 for Winter Break to visit family, and I am not sure they have taken any time off this summer. They also seemed overly excited for when my adviser was going to be out of town, so they could leave a couple hours early on Friday, which I felt was weird. The work we do takes time, but the only reason we need to be in the lab is to run data on the computers, or for participant appointments which don't happen too often and we have plenty of notice in advance as. I guess my question is, is this typical? Will I just have to get used to working 9-5 with no breaks? Or should I talk to my adviser about this?  And before I get criticized, I was no where close to expecting I would get a full winter break, because the lab still does need to run. I just was not expecting this. 

Thank you in advance. 

Edited August 6, 2016 by almater435

[St Andrews Lynx]

A lot of the time grad students (especially in the sciences) aren't really students, but employees. A two week vacation allowance is what you'd get as an employee in industry, say. Two weeks vacation + one week over Christmas + federal holidays is fairly average for grad students. 

The difference you're describing also has a "cultural" component. A lot of research labs are intense places to work: the boss expects long hours (and a research output that reflects that) and short vacations. In my lab we're also expected to show up on Saturday and put in a decent working day. Usually the labs with the longer hours are the most ambitious - they want lots of results (to get funding, papers, etc) and to make a mark on the field. There is also some kind of implied or real threat hanging over the grad students about non-compliance with this work ethic (getting criticised or even kicked out of the lab).

That said. A lot of these research labs also attract very intense people. The kind of folk who want to put in long hours and see vacations as a dangerous distraction or delay to their output. The folk who want to get high-impact papers at whatever cost. It works out: the advisors and grad students both get what they want, no one has an incentive to change. 

It's up to you to decide if you want to be in that kind of lab or not. My suspicion is that if you tell your advisor you are unhappy with the hours/vacation allowance, their response will be "Well, I'm sorry to lose you...". Most bosses are set in their beliefs about what a "productive lab" should resemble and won't negotiate different treatments of different students. 

[AP]

I do not work in a lab, but I'll try to address you major question on how strict grad school is regarding time at work and -specifically- breaks. 

My first reaction when I read your post is that you advisor is probably trying to teach you one of two things, or maybe both: 1) That grad school is relatively flexible compared to the 9-5 job but that doesn't mean that you don't require discipline, and 2) that students have probably failed in the past because of that flexibility. I am with you, I am all about autonomy and self-reliance. However, I am older so that means that I have acquired some "life" experience that some of the people that come straight from undergraduate don't have. In my case, it made me a good time manager. I see this with one of my best friends, who is always running late for projects and stuff. He is smart and well-intentioned, but his advisor has realized that my friend needs a more structured version of school until he learns how to manage better. (disclaimer: this does not mean I am a good manager. It means I have been through enough failures because of the "flexibility" that I have learned my lesson haha). 

I don't know if your situation is "typical". In my school, if you are on stipend you are expected to make good progress and produce good scholarship. I am on stipend 11 months so there is a month a year that I know I can do whatever I want (in theory). Since I get things done, my advisors do not frown upon me when I travel (and I travel often bc of a very ill relative). 

You could show your advisor you get things done with minimal supervision to raise your case for longer breaks. Or you could just comply with this this year and then talk about breaks. 

[Quickmick]

I work at an institute that is inter-disciplinary, so has both wet labs and more 'think-tank' type of activity and the people who run the various components have different ways of doing things. I think for most of the grad students the 'work' part is listed as 50% fte in the manual...so technically 20 hrs a week. I do not punch a clock, and no one seems to keep tabs on me...but they probably notice that I am there everyday. The expectation is that I will put in the time to do what needs to be done and as long as that is happening everyone seems happy. As long as that piece is in place, I can take time--within reason--for myself/vacation that is not really kept in some vacation day ledger. There are, obviously, other ways of doing things. As @St Andrews Lynx points out there are some intense people, and I tend to think that it is not all that hard to be "good" at the game, but the difference between moving from "good" to "great" is an incredible amount of work and some managers may want to be more of the taskmaster type to try to move that needle.

In any case, it sounds like you have two different issues. The first (quiet reading time to work) seems like it might be addressed by a simple conversation with your advisor. Explaining that reading time really helps you, you might be able to take a few hours a few times a week to go to the reading room, and your advisor might be ok with it if he/she is aware you are using the time to work. The other issue is not so easy and I really don't know what you can do there. This might be a helpful tale to those who are applying to programs and serve as encouragement to not just reach out to potential advisors ,but to current students who would be able to describe the lab policies. Even if there are guidelines in the handbook, there is no guarantee that these translate into the cultural expectations/pressures that are in place. I wish you the best!

 

[TakeruK]

At my school, the university-wide policy is that grad students get all of the institute holidays off (about 11 or 12 days per year, depending on the year) and 2 weeks of vacation (10 work days). This is typical for most entry level positions** in the work place (my spouse works in the "real world" and when they started, they got 2 weeks vacation + holidays but now they are at 3 weeks vacation + holidays). Actually what grad students get is a little better than most entry level positions because most businesses only observe the minimum federal holidays, schools get days like the days between Christmas and New Year's Day off etc.

(** I don't mean minimum wage type jobs, but actual entry level full time position with benefits etc.)

However, all of the students vacation days comes with a caveat that the advisor has to approve the day off. So, if there's a big experiment or project etc. on a certain week, it's okay for the advisor to say no to taking those days off. This is also like the real working world, because your boss would still need to approve your time off! Unfortunately though, some advisors abuse this power and use it to prevent students from taking their vacation. In my opinion, using this power to deny time off is supposed to be a special case type of thing but some advisors will only grant time off when work is really slow, instead of only using it when the workload is high.

Overall, I typically hear students in labs (across all fields, including mine, whether it's building instrumentation, doing experiments etc.) having more restrictions on their time off. Unfortunately, even when advisors act poorly in terms of restricting time off, there isn't much we can do (other than to not act like this if we end up on the other side). You could try to talk to your Graduate School or other advocates, but that might end up being more risk/work than it's worth. It's up to you.

But, I'm not sure if your advisor is necessarily one of these unreasonable ones. I think the first thing you need to change is the mindset of "school breaks". Although we are graduate "students", we aren't really just students and school breaks no longer applies. Instead, treat this like a real job, where you have certain holidays and you want to allocate your 2 weeks of vacation carefully, like most other people in the working world. Being limited to this time is not unreasonable, but if your advisor is preventing you from even taking the two weeks, then that is a problem. 

If you need more time off for whatever reason (e.g. family issues, sickness etc.), you can still talk to your advisor about it. There is still more flexibility in being a grad student. For example, you could work more hours and then take more time off, if your advisor is okay with it. My advisor doesn't track my hours and does not require me to get approval unless I'm gone for a long period of time. I usually work on the long weekend holidays so that I have more time off. And, sometimes if I want to take a Friday off, I might just do it, and then work extra couple of hours other days during that month etc. Another useful "flexibility" thing is that I can arrange for doctor, dentist, etc. appointments during the work day (where it's a lot easier to find an open spot), usually at 9am, and then if I come in an hour late, I just stay an hour later. This is something that is harder to do outside of academia's flexibility (however, my spouse has sick days that they can use for doctor visits).

Finally, for context, when you add it all up, I take about 20 ish days off per year (4 weeks). On average, 1 week of this is my spouse and I visiting family, 1-2 weeks is my spouse and I going on vacation to see new places or to friends' weddings (exact amount depending on the cost of where we're going) and 1 week just staying at home and recharging. Each year, both of us have to decide between visiting home/family vs. going on our own vacation and doing the things we have on our travel wish list. But these limitations are not because of grad school, we would be in the same situation were we working anywhere else (and usually, the limitations on travel are due to my spouse's work, not mine, most of the time).

[juilletmercredi]

In my experience this varies a lot from lab to lab. In my research lab (which was more the "think tank" type than the wet lab type), my time was very flexible with no expectation of 9-5 hours. I could work from wherever I wanted, even if that was not in my university's city. I didn't get time off approved by my advisor and he certainly couldn't "deny" me time off. Still I probably took about 4 weeks total - I usually went home for about 2 weeks during the holiday season (but sometimes I worked during that period - I just worked from my hometown and not New York), and then I usually took spring break off and then sometime during the summer. 

But then, I wasn't an employee, either, and I was funded on external fellowships through virtually all of my graduate I personally would not have gotten along very well in a lab that required strict 9-9 hours or in which advisor felt like they could deny me time off.

FWIW, I currently work as an industry researcher, and my job is actually more like my grad school experience than the other - in fact, I don't even get my time off approved; I just tell my manager when I'm planning to take time based on my projects and work. I have 3 weeks' worth of time off.)

I think the approach to take here is to ask your advisor what his expectations are for your lab work, on a weekly and a daily basis. Don't specify your preferences yet; just listen. Then you can decide whether or not you can work with that style or not. (Also, you may have little choice if your PI is funding you or if everyone in your department works the same way, but at least you'll know.)

[almater435]

Thank you everyone for your long replies, I greatly appreciate it! I had a long week and it was bearing on me. What I didn't specify in the original post is that I am not supported by my advisor or grants through her, but through the department as a TA, so completely outside the scope of research.  Moving forward, I'm going to be as diligent as possible to show her I can work independently and see how these next few weeks or months go with classes gearing up. for the day-to-day life, my primary issue is with the 9-5 simply because it is not conducive. One of the current graduate students expressed her desire of wanting to get home to cook dinner, and another of the students said "only ten more minutes!". At that point I find it to not be productive if you are sitting and waiting for "work" to be over. 

I also have the back-up plan of switching advisors if I find I really do not work well in this environment. Who I would switch to is also someone I expressed interest in on my application to the program and have expressed research interests in the alternate advisors area of study to my current advisor because we might (assuming I stay in the lab I am currently in) collaborate. So I guess I'm saying that to defend myself, because I do not think it would be a big surprise if I decided to switch. I know that can create some drama, so I am going to really think about my decision. The department also discussed changing advisors at our visit day, so I do not think it is unheard of. 

Again, thank you for taking the time to read my post and thank you for responding! 

[Eigen]

You mention switching, but is the new PI going to be any different?

The norm, by far, in most experimental sciences, is that you work "at least" a 9-5. Some PIs are a bit more flexible, many will also specify weekend hours and evening hours. 

Same with what you discuss in vacation time- 2 weeks is typical. Some allow more, some less.

Being funded by a TA had no real bearing on this. For you to be outside the realm of a "job" with your advisor as the "boss", you would need to be completely externally funded (i.e., fellowship) and even then it only helps so much  

Basically, what you describe is by far the norm, and I'd be cautious bucking the norm so much as a first year before you've proven yourself. Grad school is not like undergrad, it's more like working for a small startup  

 

[almater435]

31 minutes ago, Eigen said:

You mention switching, but is the new PI going to be any different?

The norm, by far, in most experimental sciences, is that you work "at least" a 9-5. Some PIs are a bit more flexible, many will also specify weekend hours and evening hours. 

Same with what you discuss in vacation time- 2 weeks is typical. Some allow more, some less.

Being funded by a TA had no real bearing on this. For you to be outside the realm of a "job" with your advisor as the "boss", you would need to be completely externally funded (i.e., fellowship) and even then it only helps so much  

Basically, what you describe is by far the norm, and I'd be cautious bucking the norm so much as a first year before you've proven yourself. Grad school is not like undergrad, it's more like working for a small startup  

 

I mentioned the stipend coming from TA because previous commenters mentioned I'd have a hard time changing anything if I was funded by the advisor. I guess in this whole thing I haven't been clear. I of course more than understand I will be working a "9-5" and likely beyond those hours. I got into graduate school, therefore I at least know a fraction of what hard work I need to put into this. My main concern and what I mean when I call it a 9-5 is that I am not permitted to go to the library or a coffee shop on campus to get some work done if I need some quiet from people in the lab, or if I simply need a change of scenery. I don't want to go home and watch Netflix, just some flexibility in my location for working. The work in my lab doesn't require being in the physical lab unless I need to run a participant in the study or to do work on the lab computers. I hope that better explains my situation and doesn't portray me as someone not wanting to work hard in school.  

[Eigen]

The general reason most advisors want you in the lab 9-5 is so they can easily find members of their lab when something comes up, and you're available for those things. There's also, depending on the school, the very common need to have people in lab so administrators don't come by, see an empty lab, and decide the PI needs less lab space.

It's a small price to pay for the (general) flexibility in a graduate schedule, and good headphones aren't that expensive.

It seems like this has morphed a bit from your original topic (vacation time) to the ancillary topic of how much you're expected to do your work in lab vs out.

[themmases]

I think you just need to get used to being at the office 9-5, honestly. What you're describing is the exact same transition people need to make to start working in any office after getting out of undergrad. Over time you can learn to concentrate in an office environment and eventually to find it more conducive than working at home or the library.

Doing your work at the office, with set hours, can actually be really good for you as a grad student because it can help prevent your work from bleeding into your life. There are other perks like not lugging your laptop around, getting to use the university's computers and equipment instead of your own, and having the same schedule as most other professional adults. Having a set schedule will help you learn how long a task should take, which will eventually help you manage your time better.

I did work for a few years before going to grad school and I can tell you the office environment is really very similar. Decorate your cube a bit, bring in any books and supplies you will want if you'll be studying there, and get some headphones. Think of it as your work space and enjoy the fact that your work space is not your living room and that you get to go home at the end of the day. Getting your advisor to like and trust you will help you get support from them in the future and not always have to be a TA. And it's more likely to get you permission to work from home sometimes than pushing back.

[rising_star]

1 hour ago, themmases said:

Over time you can learn to concentrate in an office environment and eventually to find it more conducive than working at home or the library.

I just want to reply to this part to say that this makes a *lot* of assumptions about a person. I know many people who cannot concentrate in an environment where others are talking around them and who struggle to work in cube farms because of this, even after years of doing so. Some people need quiet to concentrate and do work and that isn't always possible in an office setting. Sure, things like noise-reducing headphones help but, depending on the workplace, these can actually be seen as a negative by others and lead to trouble integrating with the team, getting promoted, etc. For all we know, the OP has ADHD or another mental or physical health issue which makes concentration difficult even in the quietest of settings. It's always good to be mindful of things like that when giving blanket advice about what one can or cannot do. 

That said, OP, if you genuinely have issues concentrating in a noisy lab environment and have tried workarounds, I highly recommend talking to the PI and others in the lab about this. Perhaps people can agree to "quiet hours" in the lab where people aren't having conversations and where those who want music listen through headphones. Such changes are more likely to be made if you put in a good effort to work in the existing conditions and modify your personal surroundings first so that people can see that you're struggling with being productive in that setting despite your efforts. Good luck!

[juilletmercredi]

Only part of this seems to be about quiet, though; the OP also mentions working in a coffee shop, which is unlikely to be much quieter than the lab (although I suppose it depends on the coffee shop and the lab), and describes wanting flexibility because of a 'change of scenery.' In that sense, I largely agree with themases - I think it's a similar adjustment as the one some people have to working in a professional office 9-5, when you're expected to show up every day and work on site rather than whatever you want.

I also agree with Eigen that before you start seriously exploring the possibility of switching, you should see whether expectations are similar across labs in your department.

I was one of those people who mentioned that you would have little choice if your PI was funding you - I meant about switching labs. The way that graduate school is structured, the PI that you work with still may have a reasonable amount of control over your schedule even if you TA or have fellowship funding if you choose to continue with that PI. On certain types of funding you may have more choice over who you work with, which may change your work hours, but a lot of PIs will simply choose not to work with a student who won't adhere to their scheduling (barring legitimate medical or psychological concerns) rather than work out a different arrangement with them because they are externally funded.

[pterosaur]

This topic makes me think about something that's recently come up as I've started to get emails about the graduate students trying to unionize (and waiting on a ruling from the NLRB to find out if they can). This is one of those aspects that's often ambiguous and anxiety-inducing: how is vacation handled for graduate students? There's usually no written policy, and the policy can vary hugely between advisors. I guess that's one of the goals of a union like that would be to get all of the policies down in contractually-binding writing so students know where they stand, because we're treated like employees even if they refuse to consider us that.

(I'm pretty sure my advisor-to-be allows more vacation time, since she told me she won't be around when I arrive because she always takes the last two weeks of August to go on holiday with her family!)

[TakeruK]

13 hours ago, pterosaur said:

I guess that's one of the goals of a union like that would be to get all of the policies down in contractually-binding writing so students know where they stand, because we're treated like employees even if they refuse to consider us that.

Exactly. In Canada, where graduate students are employees and we are almost always in unions, I had to keep saying this statement over and over again. Usually the non-bench science students are treated fairly well and they are usually skeptical of the use of a union and sometimes even actively fight it. But I keep saying, just because it's good now doesn't mean that it's going to be good forever. Unions or other types of employment contracts mean that the nice things we get right now (e.g. vacation time) cannot be taken away from us without a fight. The privileges are not just granted because the school wants to, but because the school is required to! Also, a contract ensures the same benefits to everyone---it's not fair that a more pushy/confident/assertive student is able to get more vacation time etc. because they don't back down when initially told no. 

Good luck

[Eigen]

20 hours ago, TakeruK said:

Exactly. In Canada, where graduate students are employees and we are almost always in unions, I had to keep saying this statement over and over again. Usually the non-bench science students are treated fairly well and they are usually skeptical of the use of a union and sometimes even actively fight it. But I keep saying, just because it's good now doesn't mean that it's going to be good forever. Unions or other types of employment contracts mean that the nice things we get right now (e.g. vacation time) cannot be taken away from us without a fight. The privileges are not just granted because the school wants to, but because the school is required to! Also, a contract ensures the same benefits to everyone---it's not fair that a more pushy/confident/assertive student is able to get more vacation time etc. because they don't back down when initially told no. 

Good luck

I think some of this (and I know we've talked about similar issues before) also depends on how structured (and over-arching) things end up being. I'm a huge fan of departments having specific protocols (i.e., vacation time should be included in your contract or handbook), as well as allowing it to be specified by the particular employer (i.e., you have a contract with your PI who is paying you).

Even with those in place, pushy students will still get more vacation time, as almost every contract (including union contracts) will allow "bosses" to grant exemptions- i.e., vacation time- directly or indirectly. In some cases this might be not calling it "vacation", but allowing Pushy Student to work remotely while "writing up data" on a beach in Hawaii for the summer.

What it does is set a minimum for vacation time- but most schools I've seen, the written policy is 2 weeks per year, at times approved by the "boss". Same for staff, same for faculty.

This post, on the other hand, is arguing that those two weeks, that the school does have set aside as a policy in writing, aren't enough, which is a completely different argument.

[TakeruK]

5 hours ago, Eigen said:

I think some of this (and I know we've talked about similar issues before) also depends on how structured (and over-arching) things end up being. I'm a huge fan of departments having specific protocols (i.e., vacation time should be included in your contract or handbook), as well as allowing it to be specified by the particular employer (i.e., you have a contract with your PI who is paying you).

Even with those in place, pushy students will still get more vacation time, as almost every contract (including union contracts) will allow "bosses" to grant exemptions- i.e., vacation time- directly or indirectly. In some cases this might be not calling it "vacation", but allowing Pushy Student to work remotely while "writing up data" on a beach in Hawaii for the summer.

What it does is set a minimum for vacation time- but most schools I've seen, the written policy is 2 weeks per year, at times approved by the "boss". Same for staff, same for faculty.

I agree that the balance of how over-arching/structured is a tricky thing to implement. In my ideal world, we would have standardized "benefits" across all grad students instead of PI-specific contracts. That is, you work for the school, not for your PI. This could look like one standard pay scale and benefits package for all students, or there could be e.g. "Graduate Research Assistant I", "GRA II", "GRA III", each with different pay rates and vacation time etc. 

Things like working remotely is still ambiguous in this case though. I guess that's the nature of academic work though. Ultimately, we are evaluated on our output though, so if it's possible to make the same output remotely, then it shouldn't be a problem. Also, as unionized employees, we would receive annual performance reviews that go into our employee files, so being out of contact for weeks could reflect poorly and result in not getting  a promotion to GRA II or even dismissal etc.

The other important thing about proper structure is documentation! Decisions regarding a student/employee's leave/benefits/pay/etc. should all be documented and audited to ensure that people are being treated fairly. Overall, when things are going well, this creates a lot of extra red tape** that hurts the collegial feel and also makes it feel more "corporate". However, I think that the current system benefits some but hurts many others. We don't necessarily have to move to a traditional labour union approach, but maybe some other balance is a good thing. 

(** example of annoying red tape but creates good documentation: at my last school, TAs were unionized and every year, prior to TA assignments, we had to submit resumes and officially "apply" to be a TA. The union contracts stipulates a very specific protocol for hiring TAs, e.g. everyone in guaranteed years of funding and are qualified for TA positions must be offered positions before others etc.) I know these rules can still be circumvented but at least there is a non-zero level of accountability. And, the union can take action against/penalize departments who break the rules).

In my experience, grad students get way less vacation time than others. At my school, entry level staff accrue vacation days at a rate of 1.25 paid vacation days per month (3 weeks per year) and it eventually rises to 1.75 days per month (4.5 weeks per year). I'm not sure how faculty vacation days are allocated though but our school treats postdocs, staff and faculty the same way so maybe it's something similar. 

5 hours ago, Eigen said:

This post, on the other hand, is arguing that those two weeks, that the school does have set aside as a policy in writing, aren't enough, which is a completely different argument.

Yeah, in the above post about unions, I was only responding to pterosaur's shared desire to have things written down formally, not necessarily agreeing or disagreeing that 2 weeks is the right amount of time.